Play Loud, Don't Quit, March On

Heirloom Sewing for Children Review

So, this is not doll or doll related, but I am composing this post with the hopes it will get Google pinged by any other customer who has problems with this place, seeing as how there is no place to google review them, they have locked down their contact information, they have never responded to me to date and have removed their Facebook page.

Right! Here we go:

On July 5, 2016 I placed an order for four and a half yards of white Bearissima swiss batiste and three and a half yards of white swiss entredeux from the website heirloomsewingforchildren.com. My sister in law is finally expecting a baby after many years of trying to concieve, and I volunteered to make the christening gown.

The website looked well put together and knowledgeable about the type of fabrics they sold. When you search “bearissima swiss batiste” this is one of the first sites that pops up. They state on their website that “many customers are surprised by how fast our packages arrive” and “please do not call our sewing helpline to check the status of your package.” Okay.

I’m prepared for a bit of a delay for the holiday weekend, but after a week I haven’t even gotten a shipment confirmation. They’ve deducted the $153 from my bank on the 5th, and radio silence since then.

This is where I’ve realized I made a mistake. I go to their website to look for contact information…and there isn’t any. No phone number, no email address, and the ONLY way to contact these people is from a generic email form “so we can respond to you faster from our home PC’s.” Okay, whatever, I fill out the form.

Another three days go by. Nothing.

I turn to Facebook on the off chance they have a page, and this is where I found out that I’ve REALLY made a mistake by not doing due diligence BEFORE I ordered this fabric, because their page is littered with one star reviews from people who ordered goods from their website, never received them, received the wrong order (wrong yardages, wrong fabrics) and have never gotten any response from Heirloom Sewing for Children. I wish now that I’d gotten screenshots of this, because after I filed a chargeback with my bank (where I mentioned all the one star reviews on facebook) the Facebook page was promptly removed and, as of this date, has not been restored.

The Facebook page did have one piece of information the website did not: their phone number.

If you are having problems contacting them about your order, here it is: 1-205-372-2345 (thank you, iPhone, for remembering who I called and when.)

I called them several times over the course of the next two weeks, leaving my contact information and order number on their answering machine. I was never, and have never once been contacted at any point by Heirloom Sewing for Children regarding that order as of 1:20 PM CST 28th July 2016.

On 22 July at 10:00 AM CST after no contact from the company I call my bank and file a POS Dispute.

On 23 July, they finally ship the order, which arrives on 25 July.

Please observe the invoice date:

And when they actually processed and shipped it, the day after I started chargeback procedures with my bank after two weeks of no shipment confirmations or response to my attempts to contact them (I received packages of beads from China shipped economy post in less time than it took for one package of fabric to be processed and shipped from Alabama):

Now here’s another problem. Bearissima is supposed to have a nice shine to it (I’ve sewn with it before). The fabric they sent me does not. I’m not sure they even sent the right batiste, and since I’m a suspicious bitch I pulled out my yardstick and measured the fabric.

It’s half a yard short.

Let’s break down the invoice. They sell fabric in half yard units; I needed 4 1/2 yards, that means nine units. So that’s why the quantity says “9” on the invoice.

Nevertheless, I needed 4 1/2 yards, they sent 4 yards, and no email forms or phone calls have gotten a response from anybody yet. I’m going to follow through with my chargeback dispute, and I would like to invite anyone from Heirloom Sewing for Children/Dalton Enterprises to contact me (I know you have my information) if you stumble across this blog post. If you can make it right, I will immediately append this post.

I went to their Facebook page to leave a nasty review and saw that the page had been removed.

An expensive payment to the tuition of life to always investigate a business before you order.

EDIT TO ADD 5 August 2016: Still have not had anyone from Heirloom Sewing for Children contact me about the order, but the BBB has all of a sudden upgraded them from an F to an A+ (even though the disputes are still logged on their website) so someone’s been busy. I laid out the pattern pieces for the christening gown to see if I could scrape by on 4 yards and guess what: I can’t.